1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a coin conveyor such as a coin escalator or the like for successively transporting coins dispensed or delivered from a coin payout hopper in an automatic bending machine, automatic payout machine, coin exchanger, game machine or the like.
2. Related Art Statement
Hitherto, there is a coin payout hopper as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,437,478 and as shown in FIG. 1 comprising a hopper 1 for storing coins A in bulk, and a coin feeding rotary disc 2 rotatably mounted within the hopper at an angle to the horizontal. The rotary disc 2 has a central shelf 3 and a plurality of delivery pins 4 spaced in the peripheral direction of the rotary disc and extended from the surface of the rotary disc to define a plurality of coin pockets for picking up a coin from the hopper lower portion and feeding the coin to an upper delivery portion by the respective coin pocket upon rotation of the rotary disc. The coin payout hopper further comprises an outlet chute 5 for receiving coins discharged from the upper delivery portion and for dispensing coins one at a time by a pushing force of the delivery pin or a coin counting switch actuating roller B.
Some coin payout hoppers of the type mentioned above are provided with an outlet device as shown in FIG. 1 comprising an escalator 6 connected to the upper end of the outlet chute 5 at the lower end thereof and upwardly extended from the outlet chute 5 for transporting coins to a coin tray (not shown) which is elevated from the hopper mounted on a bottom plate in for example a coin changer, game machine or the like.
The coin escalator 6 is an example of a coin conveyor in the form of an elongated trough composed of front and back side plates 7 and 8 and a pair of edge plates 9 interposed between the side edges of the side plates, respectively, for spacing the side plate by a distance corresponding to a thickness of the coin to be transferred to define a coin passage 10.
As mentioned above, the coin escalator 6 is connected to the upper end of the outlet chute 5 which receives coins delivered from the upper delivery portion of the rotary disc which is inclined at an angle to the horizontal in the coin payout hopper. Thus, the coin escalator 6 may be upwardly extended at an angle from the upper end of the outlet chute 5 up to a height of more than two meters in case of a game machine. In such a case, the coin escalator may be bent from the inclined lower end portion 6a to the vertically extending portion 6b through a curved portion 6c in order to decrease a space depth required for the coin escalator.
When the escalator 6 is provided with a curved portion 6c to change the direction of transferring coin, if the curved portion 6c has a large radius of curvature as shown in FIG. 2, the distance between the front and back side plates 7 and 8 in the curved portion 6c can be 0.2 to 0.5 mm more than a thickness of the coin to be transferred similar to that in the straight portions 6a and 6b in order to pass the coin through the curved portion 6c without dragging of coins and/or jamming, but a large space as shown by a dimension D-1 is required for changing of direction, in particular when the transferring direction of the coin transporting duct or the like is changed by a right angle.
On the other hand, if the curved portion 6c is bent with a small radius of curvature as shown in FIG. 3 because of a limited space, the distance between the front and back side plates 7 and 8 in the curved portion 6c must be incleased as shown by "d" so as to easily pass coins through the curved portion. As a result, one of the successive coins A and B can overlap on the other to be dragged and/or jammed in the curved portion 6c.
Hitherto, a leaf spring 11 has been used to urge a coin against the side plate 7 in the curved portion 6c as shown in FIGS. 1 and 4. Such a leaf spring however could not completely prevent coins from overlapping in the coin passage 10.